


a sparkling, clear blue

by rarmaster



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stranger arrives at Mysterious Tower, and Aqua makes a new friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a sparkling, clear blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aerora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerora/gifts).



> a birthday gift for my friend aera!!!!! I HOPE!!!! YOU LIKE IT!!!!! Happy birthday friend

Aqua was on the front lawn of Yen Sid’s tower, under the endless starry night, a glint of dusk at her back. She was going through her Keyblade forms. She really didn’t need the extra practice, but it was good to keep active, and this didn’t require anything that was safe to throw magic at. Besides, it gave her something to do, something that required enough mental power she didn’t need to think about anything else. That was always nice.

She was interrupted by the sharp tingle of fresh magic in the air, the feel of another presence in this world, and… the sound of flapping wings? It didn’t feel like any sort of dark or threatening presence, so Aqua banished her Keyblade and moved to meet them. She might as well, since she was out here.

In the clearing of the bushes by the edge of the world, Aqua found a young woman. She had long brown hair and wore primarily blue. Two large white wings sprouted from her back. She shook them a few times, then folded them in so they wouldn’t take up so much space. It was about then that she noticed Aqua.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and then moved to Aqua, something of an eagerness in her step. “Hello. I’m Rinoa. Would you, um, mind telling me if Yen Sid lives here? I need to ask him something.”

Aqua only spent a few moments blinking as she tried to take this situation in. It wasn’t like this was the _first_ time someone she didn’t know had come to Yen Sid seeking advice, though it was certainly the first she’d been the welcoming party for.

“Um… Yes. He does,” Aqua answered, once she’d composed her thoughts. She prided herself in the fact it hadn’t taken her too long. “I’m, um, Aqua by the way. I… live here as well.” Or, she did for the moment, anyway.

She felt like she should add something on about what her relationship was to Yen Sid, but wasn’t sure how to put that into words. She could say he was her teacher, but that was extremely untrue, and the thought of lying didn’t settle well in her stomach. (It never had.)

“Nice to meet you!” Rinoa chimed. She thrust out her hand for Aqua to shake with a suddenness that made Aqua jump slightly.

Aqua hesitated a second, but shook Rinoa’s hand.

Rinoa smiled widely at Aqua, though after a few seconds her eyes began to narrow, and she looked Aqua up and down a few times. Aqua tried not to look skeptical, though she certainly felt that way.

Finally, Rinoa said: “Hey, I know this might be a really odd question, but. Are you a sorceress?”

Aqua started, taken aback. She considered Rinoa with wide eyes, as the question churned through her mind. Where had that come from? Was it because she mentioned living here? She supposed, since Yen Sid was a sorcerer, then, perhaps…?

“Oh, I guess not,” Rinoa said, before Aqua could ask what she had meant or set any records straight. Rinoa seemed a little disappointed, for some reason. “Not that I’m surprised, seeing as they only seem to exist on my homeworld, somehow. I just, um.” Rinoa cleared her throat. “Your magic levels are off the charts?? I’ve never met someone with magic levels this high who _wasn’t_ a sorceress so I just… assumed.”

“Well, I’m definitely no sorceress,” Aqua said, not sure what else to say. “Just a Keyblade wielder.”

“Keyblade wielder?” Rinoa hummed thoughtfully, tapping at her chin. “I’ve definitely heard about the Keyblade before, at least in passing, but I don’t think I’ve ever met one of its wielders…” She sounded a little bit excited.

Before Aqua could say anything, Rinoa put her hands behind her back and leaned forward, as if trying to get a better look at her.

“So, is your magic, like, a Keyblade thing?” she asked.

Aqua swallowed.

“It’s just… practice,” she answered, haltingly.

She’d always had a knack for magic since as long as she could remember, and had been significantly better at it than Ven and Terra had (not to say either of them was _bad_ with magic!) But, the strength of magic she had now came from what she was told was ten straight years of fighting Heartless in the Dark Realm. You had to adapt, if you wanted to survive, in those conditions. All she could do was push her limits until it seemed there were none, neither on how quickly she could cast magic, nor on how much it drained her when she did.

Not really wanting to talk about that to someone she’d just met, Aqua quickly cleared her throat and changed the subject.

“So… are _you_ one of those sorceresses you mentioned?”

“I…” Rinoa considered Aqua with confusion for a moment, and then realization passed over her face. “Oh! Yeah, I am,” she said, laughing. “Sorry. I forget that the wings are only a dead giveaway to people on my homeworld. Speaking of…” She reached up and adjusted her jacket, and as she did, the wings vanished.

Aqua gasped a little in surprise, and Rinoa smiled.

“I try to hide them, when I can. It’s more convenient that way, mostly,” Rinoa explained. “But they’re always out when I cast magic, and there’s a sort of… wait period, I guess, between when I last cast magic and when I can hide them again.” She sighed and shook her head, shrugging. “It’s one of the many things about being a sorceress I still don’t understand.”

Aqua considered Rinoa carefully, trying to see if she could discern anything else about her. She’d definitely never heard of sorceresses before—or at least, not the kind Rinoa was speaking of—and she was curious. Maybe she should ask…?

Rinoa didn’t give her the chance. “I’m a little jealous of you, actually,” she continued. “I wish I’d had time to practice and grow into these powers, instead of just having them _thrust_ at me! I mean, it’s been a few years now, but. still.” She clucked her tongue with annoyance.

Aqua opened her mouth to tell Rinoa she shouldn’t be jealous—because, no one should be jealous of those years she spent trapped in the Dark Realm—but then the rest of what Rinoa said registered to her.

“Oh, is… Is being a sorceress something that’s passed to you?” Aqua asked. To give Rinoa a little more context, she added: “With Keyblades, Masters can pass the power to anyone they deem worthy.”

Rinoa tapped at her chin.

“I guess it’s a little like that?” she said, cocking her head to the side. She made a face, though, like it wasn’t like that at all. “When a sorceress passes on her power though, she passes on all of it. Usually she finds a girl to pass it onto before she dies, but, uh, it was a little different for me.” She laughed, but more like someone remembering something unpleasant than someone remembering something funny.

“I suppose it is different, then,” Aqua agreed.

 Rinoa nodded.

A silence stretched on between them from there, up until Rinoa took a careful step forward, rubbing her hands together.

“Hey, you wouldn’t… know any non-combative magic, would you?” she asked, in a tone that was equal parts curious and cautious. It was probably the most cautious Rinoa had sounded since Aqua had met her.

“I… know a few spells,” Aqua answered. She wasn’t sure why Rinoa was asking, but hoped Rinoa wasn’t going to try and ask _her_ a question about it, instead of taking the question to Yen Sid.

However, Rinoa only brightened with excitement when Aqua said yes.

“You do? That’s great!” she said. “Everyone else I’ve met who’s been half decent at magic seems to only know spells good for combat, and that’s fine, but the best part of being a sorceress is _definitely_ being able to do, like, whatever I want with my powers.”

Rinoa spoke quickly, animated the whole time.

Aqua found herself smiling. She knew the feeling of wanting to share something you loved with someone who would understand well enough.

It had been… well, a very long time, since she’d last studied non-combative magic, but she remembered that she’d enjoyed it a lot. She kind of missed the buzz and excitement of staying up until 3 AM, pouring over an old spell book, trying to get the hang of something like making a book automatically open to the page you wanted.

Equally wanting to share some of that excitement with Rinoa, Aqua reached into her pocket.

“Like I said, I only know a few spells, but…” She pulled out her wayfinder. The magic she’d worked on it and the other wayfinders was probably the magic she was proudest of.

“ _Oh!_ ” Rinoa exclaimed, the moment Aqua held it out. Aqua wondered if she could sense the magic within it. Maybe she could.

Eyes lit up, Rinoa reached for the wayfinder.

“Can I?” she asked, looking hopefully at Aqua. Aqua hesitated, but let Rinoa take it from her.

Rinoa began turning the wayfinder over in her hands, excitement and wonder growing on her face with each passing second. Something fluttered in Aqua’s stomach.

“Is this… a _connection_ spell?” Rinoa said. It didn’t even really sound like a question, and she didn’t give Aqua the time to answer either. “Man! Those are soooo hard, I’ve never been able to get any to work.” She looked up from the wayfinder and at Aqua. “What’s it connected to?”

Aqua turned away, a blush rising to her cheeks. She wasn’t used to bragging (which, this sure felt like), and she was a little embarrassed, besides.

“I made one of these for, well, me and my friends,” Aqua said, clearing her throat. She found she couldn’t look Rinoa in the eye as she spoke. “The idea was… I mean, it’s a silly old legend. But the idea was if you and your friends carried star-shaped charms, then fate wouldn’t be able to separate you. I thought I’d… add a little extra to that.”

Somehow, Rinoa seemed to light up even more with wonder.

“That’s really cool!” she said. She turned the wayfinder over in her hands a few more times. “And it’s so beautiful… Did you make the charm, too?”

Aqua nodded. “Y- yes. I did…!”

“Well, it’s wonderful,” Rinoa said. She studied it a few moments more, then handed it back to Aqua.

Aqua took it and returned it to her pocket. There was a warmth in her chest.

Rinoa clasped her hands together and rocked back and forth on her heels, still brimming with enthusiasm, as far as Aqua could tell. “I’m best at communication spells, myself!” she said. “I mean, I know a lot of other spells, but Edea—that’s my mentor, she used to be a sorceress—says she could never get communication spells to work, so I must be good at them? I don’t know.”

“Communication spells?” Aqua repeated, for clarification. Her brows had furrowed with her confusion, but there was still at least a ghost of a smile on her lips, as well as a buzz of excitement in her stomach that she had not felt for a long time.

“Yeah!” Rinoa nodded a few times. “Here, it’ll be easier if I show you.”

She shook herself, or rather, shook her wings out—they appeared again with the motion of the action. Once they had finished appearing and she’d stretched them a bit, she reached over and plucked a feather from one.

“Watch,” she instructed Aqua.

Rinoa cupped the feather in her hands and then leaned in, bringing it to her mouth. She whispered something to it, her wings flapping idly behind her. After a moment, she sent a glance up at Aqua, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She opened her hands, and the feather vanished—

—and reappeared right in front of Aqua’s face.

Aqua took a step back, startled.

Rinoa laughed a little, grinning widely. “Well? Go on!”

Hesitantly, wonder bubbling in her gut, Aqua reached out and grabbed the feather. The moment her fingers closed around it, Rinoa’s voice burst from it, a clear and playful “ _Helloooo~!_ ”

Aqua laughed, then immediately pressed a hand to her lips. The moments she felt like this—happy, filled with genuine awe for something she didn’t understand—were few and far between. There was something swelling in her chest.

Rinoa laughed too, echoing Aqua’s mood.

“It’s kind of like a message in a bottle,” she explained rapidly, words spilling excitedly from her mouth. “You put a message into an object—I use my feathers, since I have so many of them—and then you can send it to the recipient! I used a teleportation spell with it, but, it works just as well having it delivered like mail or something. You can even code the spell so that it will only activate for the person it’s meant for, if you want.”

“That’s… _amazing,_ ” Aqua said, having trouble finding the words. The residual magic of the message and the feather still burned at her fingertips. All she could do was stare between it and Rinoa in admiration. “Do-” She had to swallow a few times to get her mouth working. “Do you think you could teach me how to do this?”

Rinoa grinned widely.

“Yeah, definitely!” she assured Aqua. “But, um, would you mind if it waited until after I’d spoken with Yen Sid, though? It could take a while to teach it to you, and I don’t want to, like, forget what I came here for.”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” Aqua said. It could certainly wait. Whatever Rinoa had to discuss with Yen Sid was surely more important. She pocketed Rinoa's feather.

“Great!” Rinoa beamed gratefully. “And, if you can’t figure it out today, I could always come back tomorrow, or another time! I’d love to hang out with you again. Maybe I could teach you some other spells you don’t know, and you could teach me some spells I don’t know! What do you think?”

“I- I think it would…” It was a struggle to form the words, weird to consider making plans like this. But this feeling in her chest was something Aqua never wanted to let go of. “It- It would be great,” she said. “I’d… _really_ appreciate it.”

Smiling, Rinoa nodded. “It was very nice to meet you, Aqua,” she said. Then she pointed towards the tower. “Yen Sid’s in there, right?”

“Mmhmm. Just take the stairs, they should take you to him,” Aqua answered. Then she grimaced. “Well, hopefully, anyway. The tower’s magic, and sometimes…” She trailed off, but Rinoa was nodding like she understood.

“Do you, uh, think it’d be better if you just lead the way?” Rinoa asked.

Aqua blinked a few times at the request, but then nodded her head once. “Oh, yes, probably,” she agreed. “Here…”

So she led Rinoa up to Yen Sid (the stairs cooperated, thankfully) and introduced the two of them. She supposed she could have stayed to hear what they had to discuss about magic, but instead Aqua headed for the library once she’d dropped Rinoa off. Yen Sid must have had some spell books lying around…

Sure, Rinoa was going to teach her a spell once she was done speaking with Yen Sid, but it had been a very long time since Aqua’d last studied magic of this sort, and she was excited to again.

That swelling, wonderful feeling still in her chest, Aqua lifted a dusty looking spell book off of the shelf.


End file.
